New-York-based company Lux Research has developed a tool that can forecast the EV market

New-York-based company Lux Research has developed a tool that can forecast the EV market

Lux Research has developed a new monitoring tool for the electric car market called the EV Inflection Tracker.The idea is to forecast the time-frame when electric vehicles will reach the infection point.

Electric vehicle market is one of the most lucrative and, of course, everyone wants to get slice of this pie.

BMW, Tesla, Peugeot, VW, Honda -- these are only a few of automakers that are competing for it.

Everyone wants to have his/her place in the sun and it comes as no surprise.

However, competition is more than fierce -- not only do you compete with such guerilla marketers as Tesla, but you also completely have no idea if your ideas are trendy and if your car will make a hit with the drivers-- EV market is a scattershot and it's impossible to predict anything.

You might easily end up being broke -- sounds not very promising and kind of murky, isn't it?

Well, in here Lux Research comes in handy with its top-of-the-range tool called the EV Inflection Tracker.

Let's learn more about it.

"Following on from this, we’ve launched an EV Inflection Tracker, which analyzes how compelling automakers’ plug-in offerings are as a leading indicator of when EVs will be positioned to take over the automotive market. "

"Lux Research defines the EV Inflection Point concept as the year range when plug-in cars (technically, both EVs and PHEVs) make up more than 50% of new car sales. We’re watching all the plug-in offerings but, most notably, for depth of competition in EVs with greater than 200 miles of driving range at a price point of $35,000 or less, around which time a significant acceleration of adoption can be expected. Given the lack of any vehicles, let alone a wide variety, that meets these criteria we’re far from the EV Inflection Point."

"In fact, in the 2016 edition of the Tracker, we estimate that the EV Inflection Point is in the 2035-2040 time-frame. This corresponds to three full model cycles worth of development and iteration: By then, for example, the Nissan Leaf will be in its fourth generation.”

Not bad at all, huh?

Yeap, and that's not even half of what the EV Inflection Tracker app can do.

For instance, it can range segments, break down vehicles by its type and do plenty other of useful stuff.

The most interesting one is vehicle type filtering feature.

In here you can look at five classes – small cars, large cars, SUVs, pickup trucks, and luxury vehicles – in terms of viable commercialized vehicles available as well as their track record.

Which classes are the most popular?

Sadly for us, results aren't very promising --only luxury vehicles are popular enough to be considered seriously.

Nonetheless, these will fail to drive meaningful enough sales volumes for plug-ins as a whole. They do, however, represent the early incubators of technology that is too expensive for the mass market, making these OEMs important to watch for trickle-down innovations. At the opposite end of the spectrum, pickup manufacturers have done nothing to move the needle in terms of electrification, while in the middle there is some progress from the manufacturers of small and large cars.

There is little doubt progress is being made, just as there is little doubt that EV proliferation is inevitable. While 2035 is a long time in the future, there are billions of dollars and market leadership at stake along that journey. The question is which automakers will take that lead by populating the +200/-35K sweet-spot -- I put my money on Tesla, and how about you?